Jigsaw Jones Cover: Part 6, Final Art

I’m thrilled with the final piece of art that R.W. Alley just sent to me. Actually, it’s two scans of the same art — separated by four hours worth of work. An amazing glimpse behind the scenes, don’t you think? Thank you, Bob.

To recap:

In October, for Part One, I talked about the “cover concept” with Scholastic editor Matt Ringler. For Parts Two and Three, we learned about cover illustrator R.W. Alley’s creative process, concluding with an interview with R.W. himself. The rough sketches arrived for Part Four, with a variety of different ideas explored. In late December, Part Five, I chatted with art director Jennifer Rinaldi about her role in the process. And here we are in early February, almost four months after this whole shooting match began.

Bob Alley included a note with the scans:

1. A scan of the finished drawing before it was finished. I’ve included the extra area around the drawing that the printer needs so the art can run off the trimmed edges of the book.

2. A scan of the finished drawing cropped to the final size.

Please note that they are the same drawing. I think readers would be interested that these two scans show the same piece of paper, only in different points in time. Like about 4 hours apart.

Same piece of art, four hours later . . .

It might be helpful to see them smaller, side by side. Let’s see if I can figure out how to do this:

Here’s the rough sketch that Bob handed in back in November (remember, you can click on it to make it larger).

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If you remember, Jennifer decided to flip it for dastardly art director type reasons. At the time, Jen hadn’t settled on the colors. I guess that will be our last step.

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NOTE: Here’s a link to the final post in this seven-part series: Seven. Read them all and experience the awe and wonder of the creative, collaborative process!